Substantial evidence exists to indicate that outdoor science education, properly conceived, adequately planned,well taught and effectively followed up, offers learners opportunities to develop their knowledge and skills inways that add value to their everyday experiences in the classroom. In this talk some examples of activities thatare ‘properly conceived’ and ‘adequately planned’ will be presentedincluding some which are inquiry-based.The contribution the activities make to developing scientific literacy will be examined with a focus ondeveloping a critical understanding of the role of science in society. While many students are givenopportunities to experience outdoor science, others are not. Some of the barriers that are commonly said toexist will be presented and challenged. The talk will draw on examples of effective science education fromaround the world.

10:25-10:45

KEYNOTE

ASSISTANTPROFESSOR,

SUZANNEKAPELARI,

UNIVERSITY OFINNSBRUCK,

AUSTRIA

INQUIRE for all: what have we achieved and where are we going?

Over the past few years a consensus has emerged that teacher quality is one of the most if not the mostsignificant factor in students’ achievement and educational improvement. In addition mounting evidencereveals that structured, non-school science programmes can feed or stimulate the interest of adults and childrenin science and may positively influence their academic achievement. Thus the main goal of the INQUIREproject was to support teachers and Botanic Garden and Natural History Museum educators to improve theirinquiry-based science teachings skills and combine learning in class and at botanic gardens to support studentslearning effectively about topics such as biodiversity loss and climate change. As professionals in their field,teachers and educators continuously need to increase their knowledge and their ability to work autonomouslyand to rely on their own judgement when it comes to scaffolding students’ learning. The INQUIRE projectfocused on establishing long term communities of inquiry, not only among the teachers and educatorsparticipating in the 60 hour INQUIRE training courses run in 11 European countries but also among the 17partners institutions of the INQUIRE consortium. Over 350 teachers and educators and40

consortiummembers set out on a joint venture to investigate inquiry based science education (IBSE) inside and outside theclassroom. IBSE was not only

put into practice but evidence was collected and experiences shared to improveindividual as well as institutional capacity in science teaching. Thirteen train the trainer courses wereorganised to motivate other Botanic Gardens and Natural History Museums to give IBSE a try and to join theINQUIRE community and offer INQUIRE training courses themselves. INQUIRE is spreading and willhopefully engender change not only in science teaching inside and outside the classroom but in students’understanding of how humans have an impact on biodiversity loss and climate change.

12:00-13:00

SESSION1

-

POSTERS

AshRoom

The Botanic Garden of Sóller as an educational tool for introducing environmental education in theformal ambit of Spanish Secondary education

José

Luis Frontera Colom,

Sóller Botanic Garden, Mallorca, Spain

The majority of adolescents don’t know much about the environment. Most of them don’t think about thefuture of the Planet, just in there their day-to-day life. In the field of education, thereare many ways to makestudents aware of the need to change attitudes towards nature and their own lifestyles.

One of the problems in the schools is that the conservation of plant life gets much less attention than theanimal life. The Botanic Garden of Sóller (JBS) is dedicated the study, research and conservation of theBalearic Flora. A field trip to a Botanic Garden helps stimulate interest and awareness in the plant world andits problems. Field trips need preparation before and after. These are more than just a visit to a research center.Teachers must foster the spirit of the student researcher and wondering why things happen.

My work consists of analyzing the educational programmers run by JBS for the last four academic years. Ianalyze the use as aneducational tool for JBS activities and moreover, if the activities proposed by JBScorrespond to the students' school curriculum. Once analyzed, I create a educational proposal where studentscan learn about the problems of Balearic Flora through the work

done by JBS.

An adventure back to the Cambrium

Jorunn Karlsen,Botanic Garden of Oslo, Norway

The adventure took place in 4th grade (10 year old pupils).To find the answer to this question we used thescience lessons and inquiry based methods to investigate. The pupils worked together in groups, hadconversations, used different senses, wrote and looked at a film about the planet Earths history. They met anenvironment in the classroom with plants and plastic dinosaurs. We talked about the first plant types on dryland. We were curious about the plants and how incredible it is that the same plant types the dinosaurs ate stillexists in forests today. Examples: Wood horsetail, fern and club moss. The final and most exiting part of theinvestigation was thevisit in the Botanic garden of Oslo. There the children looked for the spesific plants inthe evolution room. They got pictures to help them, dated the plants and put it on a time line. This visualisedthe planet Earths history. It was a surprise for thechildren seeing how little space on the time line wasoccupied.With plants, animals and people. The lesson plans were made with inspiration from the inquirybased course I attended in Oslo Botanic garden. It was great fun to lead my class on this exciting

adventure.

An illustration story on plants evolution: a transdiciplinary BOTANIC GARDEN educative activity

Joana Gonçalves,Cristina Tavares,

University of Coimbra Botanic Garden, Portugal

As a Botanic Garden of the University of Coimbra (BGUC) educator, Joana Gonçalves has been performingthe story "The algae who wanted to be a flower" with children outside classroom since 2010.

This “story” is an educative activity about the evolution of plants produced by Cristina Tavares, a biologist ofthe BGUC educative service. By a first ‘hands-on’ direct contact to the five main plants groups examples, thisactivity is often and since a long time developed in the cold greenhouse of the Botanic Garden.

Extending the scope of this educational activity and crossingwith other teaching-learning methodologies, asInquire Based Scientific Education (IBSE) advocates, children were provoked and motivated to perform andcompose songs on this story and they also prepared visual arts even making the props for a theater in thegarden.

In result of the success of the story and the enthusiasm of the children and being professionally a graphicdesigner, Joana Gonçalves started to make illustrations and designs upon the story so constructing a book, withthe support and guidance of the biologist Cristina Tavares.

Considering that this educative book project matches with the objectives of the Inquire project on IBSEoutdoors educative activities case studies, we would like to present a poster at the INQUIRE Conference withsome of the "The algae who wanted to be a flower" book illustrations.

In reality, we think this is a case-study focusing on how professional learning communities develop and growin the context of education in natural environments and that teachers and educators working collaborativelycan lead to improvements in practice over time.

“From the Polar Regions to the schools”-

Approaching polar sciences with IBSE

Maddalena Macario,

University of Camerino,

Italy

In the last few years science education moved forward rapidly by connecting the expertise and enthusiasm ofpolar educators worldwide. In fact, the Polar Regions represent one of the best natural environments wherestudents can investigate directly on global changes. In this sense, our project promotes the arrangement ofinstructional resources based on IBSE activities as well as on real data coming from the research world.

In this way, the project aims to develop innovative teaching resources and practices designed to bring theimportance of the Polar Regions closer to home. Consequently, polar sciences could become a focus point inthe new national school curricula.

In particular, the activity consists of a teaching tool package including a dozen of full lesson plans based onmultimedia tools (images, smart board lessons and videos of lab experiments) as well as on hands-on labs.

The package includes also an App for tablet named CLAST (CLimate in Antartica from Sediments andTectonics), freely downloadable from App Store. This App, which has been designed by a team includingpolar scientists, focuses on the dynamic of the Ross Sea Ice shelf, in Antarctica, that is directly linked totemperature variation. Working with CLAST, students are engaged in inquiry-based and interactive learningexperiences, which show the response of the Antarctic glacial system to climatic forcing in the last 150,000years. Moreover, students handle the same key data used by geologists to constrain the paleo-environmentalreconstructions with glacial-interglacial scenarios. Finally, thestudents obtain evidence on the role oftemperature in causing advance and retreat of ice sheet that are strictly related to global sea level and climate.

Dealing with biological, or scientific topics in general, requires to a certain extent the use of scientific termsand vocabulary. This vocabulary eases and enables the understanding and communication of processes andfacts. Children and teenagers are continuously introduced into this scientific terminology during their schoolcareer. But how does this introduction work if teenagers (aged between 10 to 13) research items and processeson their own without having previous knowledge of the terminology needed?

Observations during the Pilot INQUIRE Course in Innsbruck “IBSE-

Flowers and their pollinators” revealedthat teenagers try to paraphrase items and processes of which they lack the correct terminology. They seemedvery aware of their deficiencies in this respect and it seemed to make them feel uncomfortable.

Teachers and experts use scientific terms regularly and rarely ask their students if they are familiar with theseterms. The teenagers mostly reproduced these terms without any further questions and improved their skills inthis way. With knowing more terms and vocabulary about a specific topic the teenagers raised more questionsand behaved more self-confident.

Do you know why bees build hexagonal panels? Have you ever thought that Nature prefers number 5 and thatisthe most frequent number of flower petals? Have you ever seen the hexagonal shape of snowflakes? Andwhat about the spirals of the young fiddleheads?

Spirals, hexagons… are only just some samples of the shapes that Nature is able of creating without usingrules, nor calculators or compasses. Analyzing these statements is one of the objects of this activity that hasbeen realized inside the Inquire Project which has been developed with gifted students who assist to an extra-curricular program that the Community of Madrid, Spain, includes as a specific measure for children with highresults in Intelligence Tests, and characteristics such as perseverance, together with an important degree ofcreativity.

The activity proposed with our students was based on inquiring and relating Nature and mathematical shapes.The season started with questions that took students to reflect and relate elements from Science andMathematics, transferring data and establishing connections between these two curricular subjects. Afterashort time for questioning, the learners had to find similarities between geometrical and elements of Natureshapes.

Through activities inside and outside the class the students had the opportunity to review theirknowledge and to develop their creativity. Drawing, predicting, taking pictures, comparing… were some of thetasks for the children to do, and attending to the results, I can conclude that giving opportunities for inquiringand looking for new relationships among elements are constituted as good

tools for the learning process.

A Green Laboratory in School Yard

Diana Koleva,"Vassil Aprilov" School, Sofia, Bulgaria

• Problem

situation

(current practice):

o

Reducing classes in natural sciences-> theoretical information, no time for practice and revision->formal memorizing instead of understanding

o

Clumsy procedure of taking students out of school-> limited outdoor activities-> difficulty indeveloping skills to operate in natural environment

o

Large number of students per class-> difficulties in organizing space for active learning-> rare or noIBSE implementation

• Description of the idea:

Establishing a spot called ‘Green Laboratory’ in the school yard where IBSE lessons will be carried out in theopen. The aim is to create accessible environment where the kids are to work as scientists.

The garden in the school yard should be well integrated both in the yard area and in the school process in orderto become part of school life.

• Expectations:

o

IBSE–

in an informal environment: discussions and conclusions regarding the necessity of a lab foroutdoor learning

o

IBSE in practice: active participation on the part of the students and teachers in the building andmaintenance activities

o

Integration of disadvantaged young people and of children with special educational needs

o

Self-affirmation: the belief in one’s own capabilities resulting from the actual building of the spot

o

Strategic thinking: the students develop a plan on the maintenance and use of the lab on their own

• Challenges

o

A large number of children want to participate compared to the capacity of the activities plannedunder the project.

o

Inclusion of children with special educational needs

o

Apprehension of the idea by teachers and students in connection with the sustainabledevelopment ofthe project.

• Coping strategies. Reflection

• Promoting good practices among other schools for the creation of green laboratories in school yards.

The good Earth, a case study of IBSE in the fourth grade of a primary school

Renata Attolini,Primary School De Gaspari,Trento, Italy

This poster illustrates a laboratory activity related to vegetable gardens, implemented to meet a strong demandin this sense by young children, and to involve in a collaborative way all classes ofthe primary school. Thisactivity is part of a larger project called ‘all similar and yet different’ related to the difference betweenindividuals within the same species. As a prerequisite participants need to know the difference between livingorganismsand non living things, the essential elements necessary for life: light, water, air, nourishment,understand the importance of soil for plantlife.

IBSE is effectively used in this activity, taking the moves from a constructivist approach that is used fromtheearly classes in the primary schools, that takes into account the pre-existing knowledge and conceptual change,moving from common sense to correct concepts, in a process where the teacher acts as a facilitator askingquestions rather than providing answers.

The vegetable garden is a lab where students sow seeds and observe whether germination and growth takesplace or not, consequently reflecting on the different outcomes, considering the different factors affectinggermination (e.g. same seeds, sowing day, sowing technique, etc.). Among the possible explanations (e.g.sunlight, water, cold weather, soil, etc.), the discussion is steered towards soil, analysing in detail soilcomposition (e.g. water, organic nutrients, mineral nutrients, earthworms and

other smaller animals, etc.),looking for differences that can significantly influence germination and growth.

Working in groups, students are stimulated to express their opinion in balanced and respectful discussions,respecting other people opinions, they work in a cooperative way carrying out further investigations andeventually drawing conclusions and presenting them to the class, highlighting the unresolved points and thenew aspects to take into consideration and actively investigate (e.g. light levels and temperature).

IBSE: Fresh Impetus for Professional Development and Devising New Lessons

Svetlana Mirontseva,

State-funded educational establishment of the City of Moscow, Secondary School,Russia

Classical methods of teaching biology put students off the subject. Life should be studied through livingobjects, by teaching children to observe, examine processes and conduct simple experiments. This enablesthem to acquire knowledge while also learning through personal experiences. IBSE is a collection for tools forengaging the students’ interest. I use it to organize lessons in such a way that the students stay behindafterwards to continue studying what cannot be squeezed into a 45-minute class.

The students adore their lessons in the Botanic Garden, where they can see extinct species, travel with plantsaround the planet and understand what makes them like they are. These lessons instil an interest in plantdiversity and the importance of studying plant habitats in order to preserve them. Learning the secrets ofkeeping plants at home and working with them in the Botanic Garden gives the students experiences that willinform their future choice of profession and educate them in environmental issues.

The INQUIRE course and materials helped me not

only to apply new techniques in school, but also to developmy own IBSE lessons. Activities such as floristic studies, identifying invasive species, the “Black Book”, andstudying the biodiversity of indoors plants are particularly popular, as well as comparing the seeds ofgymnosperms and angiosperms, modelling flowers, and creating seed collections.

One important outcome of IBSE teaching is the fact that many pupils are now choosing professions related tobiology, including that of biology teacher (7 last year alone).

A botanical garden as natural laboratory

Réjane Limet,Botanical Garden of Bordeaux, France

Awareness of future generations of the need to preserve our environment can be done in several steps:

1.

to observe,

2.

to know,

3.

to interrogate,

4.

to understand,

5.

and finally, to protect.

To achieve this final step, IBSE is the most appropriate method and Botanic Gardens one of the most relevanttool. These scientific and educational spaces, as other natural environment locations, are privileged sites, kindof natural open laboratories.

Three systems of young public reception exist in Botanical Garden of Bordeaux (BGB):

Then, 5 classes of 5 schools in the district of the BGB take the same annual project,

-

Finally, children of a social centre neighbouring cultivate a plot in BGB for a year.

In these 3 cases, teachers or educators are masters of their project. BGB is positioned as a reception site wherea team can accompany and support them over a long period. Thus, it offers:

-

to put on, to accompany and to evaluate the project with teacher or educator, while favouring IBSE,

-

activities in relation to the project,

-

experimental open site, with living collections,

-

meetings or exchanges with experts and scientists,

-

bibliographic resources,

-

a place where students can communicate to the public results of their researches.

Evaluations of these projects are generally positive for children and teachers or educators. Students developprogressively key scientific ideas through learning how to investigate and they are building their knowledgeand understanding of the world around.

Explaining the concept of Inquire Based Science Education through the activity how seeds aredispersed?

The activity How seeds are dispersed? has been delivered in the last two INQUIRE courses (one aimed ateducators and one at teachers) by the partners of the project Real Jardín Botánico, CSIC and Real JardínBotánico Juan Carlos I, UAH (both located in Spain, Community of Madrid) which have been workingtogether to run the courses.

This activity has been used in order to explain what Inquire Based Science Education (IBSE) is. The activityitself is aimed at 9-13 years old students and its main objective is to teach the different ways that fruits or seedscan be dispersed.

The group was divided into three small groups and within each one we use a different approach to face ourobjective (to teach how seeds and fruits can be dispersed) in order to compare afterwards the three differentways:

-

Traditional approach: the group received a master lecture with pictures about fruits, seeds and dispersal. Theyteacher is the main actor and the students receive all the explanations needed

-

Guided “hands-on” activity approach: this group experiences hands-on activities and a quick visit to thegarden but it is still an activity leaded by the teacher,

-

IBSE approach: these students are encouraged from the beginning to raise their hypothesis and to discoverhow seeds disperse on their own, collecting seeds and using some materials available as a teddy bear, a bowlwith water, a fan… (These materials are used to imitate an animal, the sea or a river, wind…) in their ownway.

The activity is

finished by a group discussion where the three methodologies could be compared. Conclusionswere quite satisfactory as most of the teachers could understand the main keys of IBSE

IBSE as a Platform for Joint Creativity by Teachers and Students

Svetlana Buldygina,State-funded educational establishment of the City of Moscow Lyceum, Russia

Life in today’s world requires new teaching techniques focused on individual development, creative initiativeand the ability to use information to resolve issues arising

in personal and professional life. Our lyceumteaches gifted children with an interest in science and technology and has a particular focus on developing theirresearch abilities. In this context, IBSE has given me a platform to make my lessons more interesting and takea fresh look at the process of teaching biology and building relationships with students.

Since attending the INQUIRE course I have expanded the range of lesson topics, made broader use ofreflective practice by the students themselves andorganized my teaching around scientific research, in whichthe teacher and students work together in a shared creative process of seeking the truth. Due to a lack ofspecialized equipment I have devoted much of my lessons to debating, gathering and evaluating facts, planningexperiments and constructing hypotheses. I have begun suggesting that students conduct independent researchas part of their homework, including tasks such as observation, planning experiments, problem analysis ,preparation of questions for debate and creative work (such as writing scenarios, stories, crosswords andpresentations).

In addition to developing intellectual skills, IBSE is helping to nurture personal qualities such ascommunication skills and an ability to assess one’s own

work and that of others.

One of the main impacts of IBSE has been the creation within the lyceum of an atmosphere of scientific questand joint creativity by teachers and students. This is helping students to form moral values, to acquire the skillsof scientific organization and public speaking, and even guiding their career choices. This is reflected in theiractive participation in the school’s young scientists’ community.

A Pathway to Inquiry-Based (digital) Teaching

Franz X. Bogner, University of Bayreuth, Germany

The objective of the three-year European PATHWAY-project with its 25 partner organisations is to set apathway toward a standard-based approach to teaching science by inquiry. The project aims to (i) support theadoption of inquiry teaching

by demonstrating ways to reduce the constrains presented by teachers and schoolorganisations, (ii) demonstrate and disseminate methods and exemplary cases of both effective introduction ofinquiry to science classrooms and professional development programmes, as well as to (iii) deliver a set ofguidelines for the educational community to further explore and exploit the unique benefits of the proposedapproach in science teaching. In this way the project team aims to facilitate the development of communities ofpractitioners of inquiry that will enable teachers to learn from each other.

The Pathway project selected a framework for selecting Best Practice Examples within the science educationin classrooms. The partners have chosen within their field of specialisation 50 Best Practices, one of which, forinstance, is the InQuiBidT, an approach of “Inquiry-based Biodiversity Teaching” in pre-service teachereducation (see the following presentation). Another one, for instance, is an approach labelled NaturalEuropewhich is digitally linking museums and school classrooms. An impressive abundance of high quality digitalcontent available in Natural History Museums around Europe still remains largely unexploited due to a numberof barriers. A third example is the GenLab, where high school students learn within an outreach lab hands-onexperience innovative basics in genetics and gene-technology. Finally, as last example, the interdisciplinary“Hearing of Sound” is highlighted, consisting of 4 interdisciplinary (biology-physics) learning stations aboutsound and the ear by inquiry. The approach includes to wonder about sound and hearing. to investigate thequestions raised in the learning at stations as well as to confront their ideas and findings with scientific

insights.

Why is there no population of fish in the river?

Majken Korsager,

Norwegian Centre for Science Education, Oslo, Norway

In this poster we present a way of structuring inquiry-based science teaching using the 5E instructional model(Bybee et al., 2006). We show an example of how ecology teaching can be structured and conducted withfocus on the five phases in the 5E model: engagement, exploration, explanation, elaboration, and evaluation.By using the 5E model, the science concept of a lesson is“invented” during the lesson rather than defined atthe outset of the lesson, as in the traditional approach. This might support teachers to specify the purpose andevaluate the effectiveness of inquiry-based tasks focusing on students’ learning. In thisexample 30 studentsinvest why there no population of fish in the local river by engaging in fieldwork were they collect and furtheranalyze data. During their practical work, they continuously report and discuss their findings with peers in acollaborative wiki and in the classroom. The classroom teacher guides and helps the students to c!

onduct fieldwork, interpret data and to navigate and find relevant reliable information on the World WideWeb. The focus of teaching is on supporting the students whenthey interpret their own collected data, usingevidence to support their scientific claims and knowledge about ecology and environmental issues.

14:15-15:30

SESSION2

–

WORKSHOP

ANDPAPERS

OakRoom

Workshop

Inquiry-Based Science Education in Practice

Do we really know what we eat?

Blanca Olivé,Real Jardín Botánico Juan Carlos I,

University ofAlcalá, Spain

The aim of the activity is to understand the importance of the scientific work, technology developments and itsapplication in our daily life.

Theactivity starts with the teacher asking to students: who likes honey? And a discussion about who produceshoney, what is the work of the bees, which plants are visited by bees, what they get in the flowers and so on.

Outdoors in the garden and working in pairs, the students get a jar of honey and a toolkit to investigate it. Theyhave to design their own investigation and find out if their jar of honey has inside the type of honey that thelabel says (For example: Rosemary honey or False Acacia honey) or if

there is a fraud.

The information given in the label is about the type of honey and the place of Spain from the honey comes.Students will compare this information with their own conclusions after their investigations. So, they start withthe question: Do

I know if this honey is really Rosemary honey?, for example. Their hypothesis can be that thejar of honey is a fraud or not.

For the investigation they can do a pollen test (with simulations of optical microscope pollen samples), theycan investigate bees, plants and flowers and they can taste, smell or see the color of their honey. In the gardenthe plants selected for this activity have a sign showing some useful information as the areas in Spain wherethe plant grows or the type of honey that the plant

produces.

Students have to share their conclusions to the rest of the class. Then, all together can highlight the value of thescientific knowledge, technology developments and their applications of science in our daily lives and our foodsafety.

BeechRoom

Workshop

Reflective Practice

Improving Reflection skills: a new approach

Ljuba Pencheva,

University of Sofia, Bulgary

Every activity based on communication provides a feedback about ourselves as it reflects the way people seeus and act. So what doesthe skill of performing reflection mean? It is the ability to read properly the signals ofpeople we associate with. Moreover–

reflection can be regarded as the ability to put our ego aside and, as ifwe are in a magical space, to see ourselves from an outsider’s perspective. In the beginning of last centuryJ.L.Moreno-

a doctor and sociologist, spent time to focus on a study of the processes of interaction withindifferent social groups. Following many years of practice he developed methods for the improvement ofcommunication in social communities and beyond–

for therapeutic activity of wide application. Today, hisapproach is known as psychodrama and is characterized by different situations actually played out with thecooperation of a group in which the sharing of experience between the participants has a paramount role. Thisworkshop offers application of the methods of the group psychodrama in the meetings of practicing teachersand educators. By presenting real situations that are related to professional challenges, difficulties in theintroduction of new techniques in teaching and so forth, the participants can go through, share and build upontheir experience. The real essence of the process of reflection relates to restructuring our experience and

knowledge aimed at coping with our tasks in a more qualitative quick and professional way or in other wordswe should raise our competency. The workshop is designed for practitioners who are curious to look to theirpractice from aside, to hear from different “points of view” and to experiment new approaches. Each skilldevelops through experience. We also need practice to improve our reflecting skills.

Rowan

Room

Workshop

Inquiry-Based Science Education in Practice

Kolibri seeks Bromelia–

sparkling IBSE activities

Doris Elster,Sonja Eilers, Yvonne Matzick,

Institute of Biology Education,University of Bremen,Germany

How can we promote the fascination of plants? In this workshop we invite the participants to bring with themIBSE materials and share with us their experiences with remarkable IBSE activities. In addition, we willpresent some of the most sparkling activities developed and conducted within the “INQUIRE for StudentCourse Bremen”. We invite participants to test some of them hands-on and/or

minds-on and to discuss theirfurther development.

We start with the IBSE activity “Climate and Ice” and invite participants to buildhypotheses about the Ice-Albedo-Interdependence and how the polar ice may influence the sea streams. Theexperiment “Gulf

stream in the aquarium” allows testing the hypotheses. A further IBSE activity is called“Expedition to the Mount Kinabalu”. This is a prominent mountain and with 4.095 metres above sea level andthe highest peak in Borneo. The mountain is among the most

important hotspots in the world, with between5000 and 6000 species of plants. We invite participants to walk with us through the Malaysian rain forests andto explore the different adaptation of plants in their struggle of light and mineral nutriment. Examples includedifferent epiphytes like Orchid spp., ferns, and the symbioses of Nepenthes sp. with mammalians. What tracesof climate change can we recognize during our hike to the peak?

Then we move to Middle America and CostaRica. The IBSE Activity “Kolibri seeks Bromelia” is a sparkling activity in the context of pollination. Why aresome of the Bromelia species green and other grey? Why do they have such colorful blossoms? What makesBromeliceae so successful in their adaptation on a changing climate?

At last the IBSE activity “It’s my choice”focuses on the Wild Tabac plant, a generalist and winner of climate change, and its fascinating strategy tochoose between butterflies (Sphingidae) and birds (kolibris) as pollinators to protect itself against predators.

This hands-on workshop explores object-based learning as tool for supporting IBSE learning. Developed totrain teachers and education professionals working in a range of different LOtC settings, the approach can beused with diverse audiences including primary and secondary schoolstudents, adult learners, people withspecial educational needs and community groups.

Participants are placed in a teacher-as-learner role as they work through and reflect on a series fun, fast-pacedactivities designed to encourage inquiry learning. Theactivities particularly focus on:

-

Asking and answering questions

-

Analysing and weighing up evidence

-

Developing creative and critical thinking

-

Communicating ideas

-

Close observation

A key learning outcome for the session is to understand that objects, as pieces of evidence of the world and ofthe past, can be used nudge learners down avenues of research and observation based on the evidence beforethem.

The aims of the workshop are to:

1. Provide hands-on, practical examples of how to use objects for inquiry based science learning.

2. Demonstrate the effectiveness of an inquiry-based learning approach for teaching in LoTC settings.

3. Inspire practitioners to develop their own site-specific object-basedlearning activities.

The maximum group size for this activity is 25 participants. Ideally it requires large enough space for five tableislands to be set up to facilitate as a circus of five hands-on activities with a maximum of five participants pergroup.

ChestnutRoom

Papers

Inquiry-Based Science Education Outdoors

How much IBSE is possible during a class visit to a Botanical Garden?

Jutta Kleber,

National Botanic Garden of Belgium,Meise,

Belgium

When teachers work out IBSE activities, they mostly often think of experiments that can be done in aclassroom. These experiments are related a subject taught this time in class and they can take a certain time, ifneeded.

Educators who organise workshops for children in our Botanic Gardens start from a

completely differentsituation. They often have only a few hours, and a group of children wanting to see as much as possible of themarvels of a Garden.

How can IBSE work in this kind of situations? Is it even suited for these settings?

First of all, wewould like to investigate how the educators of our Botanical Garden who participated in theInquire Course implemented what they learned in the workshops they give. What kind of possibilities anddifficulties to they see? How did the course changed their

way of working?

Furthermore, we would like to investigate some examples from educators who work at other places, from ourpartners in other countries and also we would like to add some examples we worked out and tested ourselvesin our Garden.

As a conclusion, we would like to make some recommandations on how to implement IBSE during a visit to aBotanical Garden.

How can LOtC provide a change in teaching methodology to promote students’ engagement innatural sciences? The Lisbon Botanic Garden as a casestudy

This paper points outthe role of Lisbon Botanic Garden (BG-NMNHS) within the INQUIRE project. Wefollowed three specific goals: 1) to disseminate IBSE as a pedagogical practice within the teacher’scommunity; 2) to link formal and non-formal education to teach Biodiversity and

Climate Change and 3) touse the BG as a LOtC institution in promoting students engagement in natural sciences.

The teacher course consisted of a 60-hours accredited program, involving 40 teachers coming from South andCentre of Portugal. The teachers were invited to develop their own lesson plans, and practice in theirclassrooms the IBSE method applied to the themes of biodiversity and climate change. A reflection practicewas promoted to discuss the advantages, limitations, breakthroughs and challengesof teachers at nationalcontext. Also, a 2 open workshop’s days was organized in November where 30 other teachers participated.

We were able to develop teacher’s knowledge and skills in IBSE methods and to make them effective inapplying it within their scholar curriculum. With this they were able to raise students' motivation and interesttowards science that went beyond this simple experience. Furthermore, teachers learned how to use the BotanicGarden, how to interact with educators and scientists as a way of contact with real natural contexts and toengage students in the creation of scientifically oriented questions, emphasizing the importance in linkingformal and non-formal education. Also, the challenge of using a LOtC as the BG-NHMNS to discuss in situlike researchers, do make them feel important, keen in learning and able to motivate their families in theirschool programs.

As a whole we can say that Lisbon Botanic Garden presents itself as a good bridge on the promotion of formaland non-formal education institutions. Our experience also showed that any young person should experiencethe world beyond the classroom as an essential part of learning and personal development, able to remainafterwards as a lighthouse of our Garden.

My Natural Sciences 8th year pupils (ages 13-14) developed a project to research which abiotic factors couldinfluence the life cycle of the processionary caterpillar (Thaumetopoea pityocampa).

The early appearance of processionary caterpillars around the school (January 2012 instead of March) hadattracted my pupils' attention.

This was the starting point for an Inquiry Based Science Education (IBSE) case study, stimulating interestwithin the biodiversity and climatic changes curricular program, as well as identifying my project as anINQUIRE course trainee at the University of Coimbra Botanic Garden.

The pupils then developed it, in conjunction with other practical activities inside and outside the classroom,using observation and questioning to answer the initial question proposed by the pupils themselves:

“Why are caterpillars already processing in January?”

The study comprised the conception, planning, implementation and evaluation of an educational interventionusing the IBSE active learning method and was framed within the "Ecosystems-

Living-Environmentinteractions" curricular teaching unit:

1. The pupils designed the study in the classroom.

2. Next, they examined pines within the school grounds, in working groups of three and using documentsalready prepared in class, to find and survey the caterpillars.

3. They related their findings and debated these together in plenary session.

They concluded that caterpillars had processed earlier because of the unusually warmer and drier weather inJanuary 2012.

Later, they developed a poster and a report describing the project, their findings and their learning outcomes.

The pupils reported that they had enjoyed this way

of active learning and they felt they had had a stimulatinglearning experience.

I felt this project was an enriching teaching experience, demonstrating how IBSE can inspire pupils in scienceand help to address biodiversity and climate change. As a Natural Sciences teacher, I am now a convert to theIBSE teaching-learning methodology.

Learning is a global process where many elements take place. One of the main teachers’ purposes focuses onencouraging children and involving them in their own knowledge acquisition. Inquire becomes so an efficientmethodology which stimulates thinking and offers intellectual challenge.

The activity realized inside the Inquire Project has been developed with gifted students who assist to an extra-curricular program that the Community of Madrid, Spain, includes as a specific measure for children with highresults in Intelligence Tests, and characteristics such as perseverance together with an important degree ofcreativity.

One of the signals that can report parents and teachers information about their children or students’ giftednessis the great deal of questions that they ask since very young. Almost when they start speaking they inquireabout everything, mainly when the objects are linked to their own interests. Inquire becomes then one of theirmain source of knowledge, and it is through inquiring that they get more and more information.

Another feature of some gifted students is their ability for transferring knowledge; as a general rule theyusually establish original and creative relations among different events or elements.

Taking into account these aspects, the activity proposed with our students was based on inquiring and relatingtasks. The season started with questions that took students to reflect and relate elements from Science andMathematics, transferring

data and establishing connections between these two curricular subjects. After ashort time for questioning, the learners had to find similarities between geometrical and elements of Natureshapes.

Through activities inside and outside the class studentshad the opportunity to review their knowledge anddevelop their creativity.

Looking at the results I can conclude that inquiring is the perfect methodology for born inquiring students.

Climate change: good or bad?

Catarina Loureiro,

Geology Center of the University of Oporto/University of Minho, Portugal/University of Coimbra Botanic Garden, Portugal

Crossing scholar curricula, a seventeen 5th grade students group (ages 10 to 12) explored the importance ofabiotic factors to biodiversity through an investigative activity at school natural grounds, discovering therelationships within an ecosystem–

trees and the environment.

The project had three stages. Firstly, we confronted our students with a question-problem: “Is climate changegood or bad?” They started debating the possible implications of changes in climate upon plants and beganpreparing the second stage–

investigation at the school garden. Here, students autonomously explored thegarden natural resources and learned ‘hands-on’ about the role of plants in an ecosystem: their importance toits equilibrium and the importance of abiotic factors to their survival. Afterwards they returned to theclassroom for project stage three, debating and sharing their discoveries to reach an answer to our question-problem.

Ending the project, students showed a better understanding of the trees role in an ecosystem, comprehendingthat trees need carbon dioxide, water and soil to survive, also serving as support and shelter for soil, plants andanimals. Moreover students debated possible scenarios, proposing solutions to minimize

climate change effectsand naturally the answer to the question-problem emerged: : Climate change can be considered both good andbad, depending…

Several educational materials were developed: notebooks, posters, field guides, both supporting and engaging

tools. To systematize out experiences, we created an interactive e-book about climate change includingactivities suitable for ages 10 to 12 students.

IBSE methodology proved successful as students were engaged, attentive and excited about theirdiscoveries,allowing me, as an educator, to engage them more deeply, while exploring a wider range ofsubjects.

In the SBZH plants from all over the world are cultivated. „Plant deliveries“ for certain topics are offered andcan be ordered by all types of school during the year.

The SBZH developed an INQUIRE-module and plant delivery “Plants andClimate” with plants of specialadaptation, typical for their original habitats in all climate zones.

The IBSE-use of that plant delivery was introduced during the INQUIRE-teacher training course. The plantswere compared, sorted according to self-created

and given criteria. Morphology and anatomical structureswere explored and hypotheses about the plants´ abiotic needs were discussed and tried to be verified withvarious scientific methods. Due to the results, the plants were related to corresponding outlying climatediagrams and the climate zone of their origin. Finally, a cultivation plan was developed for each plant.

The module was tried out, amongst others, with a 7th grade class in Secondary School Steinhude. The studentsmade hypotheses about the reasons for adaptation of plant structures. They were focussing on the factor waterand its transport, the transpiration and evaporation of plants and developed their own experiments to giveevidence to their hypotheses.

The success of the module will be presented by its evaluation.

16:00-17:15

SESSION3

–

WORLDCAFÉ

Workshop

Developing Training Courses in LOtC

World Café: engaging the participants into an INQUIRE course

Serena Dorigotti, Costantino Bonomi, Marina Galetto,MUSE,Trento,Italy

Round Coffee tables seating 4, comfortable chairs, paper tablecloth where you can take notes, colour pencilsand naturally tea, coffee and cookies to enjoy. These are the basic ingredients of a World Café workshop,besides the facilitators of course! A simple and effective way to promote a lively discussion in small groups ina relaxed atmosphere where even shy participants can feel comfortable to express their opinion, sharing ideasand developing new concepts. There are many variation on the basic format, each table can

debate the sametopic or different aspects of a similar topics, progressing into 2 or 3 rounds of discussion, participants changetable at each round and move the discussion forward into progressing steps. A facilitator sits at each tablewelcoming participants, making sure the timing is respected and the discussion progress towards the final aimof the workshop. Participants are encouraged to leave notes and comments on the tablecloth and facilitatorseventually reports the outcomes of the rounds of discussion to the final plenary.

During the Italian edition of the Inquire course, this format was used twice, a first time to facilitate the creativeprocess where participants were stimulated to develop ideas for a new IBSE activity, the workshop was used todiscuss and debate in small groups a possible topic, to select the level of inquiry to use, and to structure theactivity into the different IBSE stages. At the end of the course, another world café was used to collect theparticipant feedback on the course, simulating the evaluation of the course analysing strength and weakness toimprove.

Today’s world cafe will try to assess what you think of IBSE and the opportunities and challenges connectedit, asking you if, why and how you could run an Inquire course in your local context.

Wednesday 10 July

09:00-10:00

KEYNOTE

ChestnutRoom

PROFESSORDORISJORDE,

NORWEGIANCENTRE FORSCIENCECOMMUNICATION,

OSLO,

NORWAY.

What is this thing called inquiry, and why is it so important for teaching and learning science?

Doris Jorde is Professor of Science Education at the University of Oslo and is currently Director of theNorwegian Centre for Science Education. She was the leader of the “Mind the Gap” EU project andparticipated as scientific advisor for the EU

S-TEAM project-

both exploring ideas of IBST in teachingand learning. She is a past president of the European Science Education Research Association from 2003-2007.

10:00-11:15

WORKSHOP ANDPAPERS

Rowan

Room

Workshop

Inquiry-Based Science Education in Practice

“Will there be any sea levelrise because of climate change?”

Experiments and inspirations-

Working like a scientist

Anke

Malethan, Jörg Ledderbogen,

Regine Leo,

School Biology Centre Hannover, Germany

In students´ discussions about various effects of climate change on sea level rise a lot of questions andhypotheses are coming up. On this background students create experiments to explore their hypotheses.

Performing different experiments, they will understand how many factors have to be considered if

the relationof climate change and sea level rise is concerned.

During the workshop, participants can do alike and investigate their own hypotheses with the preparedequipment and, maybe, they develop new experiments to investigate and reflect on the relationship betweenglobal warming, the global distribution of ice masses, on climate warming, the effects on the melting of theglobal ice masses and the significance to shelter the global ice masses.

When the participants perform some prepared experiments about the relation of sea level rise and climatewarming, these should not be taken as imperative recipes: They are only meant to be a guideline to start.

Many experiments will give unsatisfying results–

but why?

What did we do wrong? How can we improveour scientific approach?

One question still remains: Can hands-on experiments reflect the real world?

And this is what INQUIRE wants to show…this is the reality of science

SycamoreRoom

Workshop

Inquiry-Based Science Education Outdoors

What we can Learn by Measuring Plants and Mobile Application for Assessing AsymmetryFluctuation in Tree Leaves

Ivan Smirnov,Alla Andreeva,

Moscow State Center for Youth, Russia

We plan to introduce IBSE activities, as taught in the INQUIRE course run by the Botanical Garden ofMoscow State University (“Aptekarskiy Ogorod”). The activities are based on comparative measurements of,for example, annual shoot growth, leaf asymmetry and leaf surface areas in various species of trees and bushes.The measurements performed by students teach them to identify plants, to compare data and to analyze thereasons for any differences they observe. Students also construct hypotheses on differences in growingconditions and examine how global or local factors (including climate) may impactgrowth and development.The measurements are compared against weather and other data to enable students to draw conclusions anddevelop forecasts of how measurements may change in the future under various scenarios, which can then bemodelled.

These ideas,

which were presented during the INQUIRY courses at the Botanical Garden of Moscow StateUniversity, are being further developed through the creation of a mobile application for assessingenvironmental impacts on the symmetry of tree leaves. This will be available as a free application for mobiledevices using the Android operating system. Thanks to modern technology it is possible to automate a numberof processes, such as photographing leaves, image analysis, calculation of the fluctuating asymmetry index,and correlation of the data with GPS coordinates. The program will simplify the process of collectinginformation and help to create a network of students involved in nature studies.

Two groups of students-

biologists (led by 11th-grade student VitaliyRyzhov) and programmers (IT-group)have conducted a field study during Research School of Moscow State Center for Youth(http://interschool.redu.ru/). They are currently developing an application with the working

name of Symleaf,which will soon be available for downloading.

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Inquiry-Based Science Education Outdoors

Sow, see, smell, taste and cooperate

Kristina Bjureke,Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, Norway

In this work shop we will perform

parts of an inquire based lesson plan developed at the Natural HistoryMuseum in Oslo. It has been tested by teachers, educators from other museums and school children.Continuous evaluations have changed and developed the content. The main topics are: what is a fruits andwhat is a seed, what are fruits and what are vegetables, different types of fruit, and how a scientist andgardener work. All senses will be stimulated: to think, look, smell, taste, work with your hands and explain.

We will perform a small part of the pre-work, the exercise in the Botanical Garden, and the post-work. Thepre-work is a series of questions and answers created by the preceding questions. As there is no space for agreenhouse in the classroom, the students creates mini greenhouses of empty soda bottles during the visit in theBotanic Garden. The bottles are taken back to school and kept in the window. The students are trained to makeobservations and write a log (like all scientists). In addition the post-work includes practical work as making afruit salad,and geography â€“ by mapping where in the world the fruits grow originally and as cultivated.

Outdoor

Workshop

Inquiry-Based Science Education Outdoors

Inquiry and Assessment. Are they mutually exclusive?How can inquiry based learning meet theneeds ofteaching to an assessment and examiners mark scheme?

Sue Hunt,Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK

Many teachers place the problem of having to teach to a prescribed curriculum, syllabus, or examination markscheme as reasons for not being able to teach using inquiry based methods. This outdoor workshop will showhow using ‘questioning’ will allow students to draw out the required knowledge necessary for developing amethodology and understanding of fieldwork sampling sufficient for examination at 16 and 18 year

old level.The activity also demonstrates how the facilitator uses equipment to maintain the required focus without theneed for further instruction or limiting student direction. A truly inquiry based outdoor activity which formsthe basis of factual data gathering needed to assess impact on species distribution brought about by climatechange or other environmental pressures. The closing part of the session considers assessment requirements,good scientific practice

and follow on student interest led further work.

This hands-on, practical, outdoor workshop will take place even in inclement weather, so do come dressedappropriately for the weather of the day, as field sampling isn’t only for balmy sunny days.

PineRoom

Workshop

Inquiry-Based Science Education in Practice

IBSE activity on textile plants

and fabrics

Francesca Pugni,

Bergamo Botanical Garden “L.Rota”, Italy”

The activity is conceived for Primary School Students and it deals with textile plants. The activity has differentgoals: to let the children discover that what they usually dress in everyday life partially comes from plants andto let them discover, by an active learning process, the distinction between what comes from plants (the textilefibre) and what is embellished by men (the fabric). Plants are very important for our lives and they are morepresent than we expect in our wardrobe and in our homes. The activity takes about two hours, and it can be runeither in Botanical Garden, either in schools or in informal learning settings.

Fabrics hide important and different stories: they can come from plants (such as cotton and flax), but fromanimals or oil as well. In groups, students will investigate the origin of one ball of thread, provided by theteacher: cotton, flax, wool, syntheticfibre.

”Where does this thread come from?” is the scientifically oriented question, which should stimulate thechildren investigation. Each group will receive one “stimulating bag” (the cotton bag, the linen bag, the woolbag and the synthetic fabric bag)

provided by the teacher and containing different materials: fabrics, objects,pictures, instruments. Students will be asked to analyse what they find into the bags and by the help of writtenguidelines they will be asked to cooperate, to connect information and to investigate about the origin of theirsingle fabric.

By explaining their findings and listening to the other groups, students will focus on the importance of plantsin our lives. The Botanical Garden setting could foster the investigation of other textile plants structuring thelearning process by the direct experience with plants.

ChestnutRoom

Papers

Professional Learning Communities

Inquiry-based Biodiversity Teaching in pre-service teacher education-

a contemporary approachusing mobile devices to support location-based learning

Steffen Schaal,

Ludwigsburg University of Education, Germany

Biodiversity is part of secondary school curricula and contemporary teaching strategies are crucial for thedevelopment of students’ knowledge and attitudes towards its protection. In contrast, pre-service teachers donot feel competent enough to teach about complex issues like biodiversity. Biodiversity education needs todraw connections to students’ every-day life and interests that could be attained using authentic learningenvironments and multiple methods. Combining active, participatory and collaborative learning methods withoutdoors experiences seems to be promising to improve biodiversity knowledge and attitudes. But during theirinstruction pre-service teachers often do not encounter instructional approaches like this in their universityeducation.

The study presents an approach of “Inquiry-based Biodiversity Teaching” (InQuiBidT) in pre-service teachereducation based on a comprehensive framework for inquiry-based science education developed within the EU-FP7-project PATHWAY. The InQuiBidT-approach (workload 3 ECTS) uses mobile technology to supportself-determined location-based learning to enhance contextual learning about local biodiversity. This approachcomprises three stages: (1) Introductory stage: Basic concepts of botany/zoology and biodiversity are taughtusing computer-supported cooperative learning strategies which is consolidated in a botanic garden. (2)Preparatory stage: Student groups inquire a habitat and create materials for a web-based repository accessiblewith mobile devices. (3) Exploratory stage: Students explore the habitats of the other groups using geocachingtools like GPS, hidden QR codes and other game-like activities to access the materials. All students summarizethe information (photo, location) about species they found in their digital herbarium (examples athttp://wikis.zum.de/inquibidt).

MUSE is a science museum based in NE Italy fully committed to support teaches and educators in theirprofessional development in nature and science topics. MUSE endeavours to use at its best the many free toolsad opportunities made available through IT technologies and the world wide web to develop an effective on-line community of practice.

Since 2010 MUSE developed an information gateway of earth system science educational resources called I-CLEEN (inquiry

on climate and energy-

www.icleen.museum), to support Italian science teachers in settingup Earth science student-centred lessons. The gateway adopts a bottom up approach to resource developmentthat relies on strong cooperation between science teachers

and professional researchers (who also act asresource referees); it is subject–oriented and enhances the multi-and interdisciplinary traits, it embraces theconcept of open source, through the technological tools (LifeRay) used and copyright policies adopted.

Since 2011, during the Inquire project the course participants, both teachers and educators wereencouraged to use free tools such as e-forums and on-line file storage drives (e.g. dropbox, googledocuments) to share and discuss the course products(e.g lesson plans, ideas, additional resources). Thecommunity is regularly briefed and updated through a mix of free tools such as mailing lists (e.g.freelists) and social media (e.g. facebook, twitter).

GreeNET-

Towards the Formation of a Teachers' Network on Environmental Education throughInquiry and Technology

Vassiliki Markaki,

Ellinogermaniki Agogi, Greece

Around the world, the awareness that we live on a planet with limited resources signals an educational crisis,among others, that calls for support to these key competences necessary for active citizenship and socialcohesion, as well as a turn towards green professions (Orr, 1992). What is more, teachers often lack the skillsneeded to enhance students’ key reflective problem-solvers, a fact that derives from the limited range oflearning activities that demonstrate specific pedagogic approaches (inquiry-based learning) and innovative useof ICT tools. The role of specially trained teachers to effectively carry out environmental education, increaseexpertise and ensure sustainability (Ariansingam, n.d.) is particularly stressed out by the EuropeanCommission (Stokes et al, 2001). This paper will focus on the GreeNET project, an initiative that correspondsto this increasing recognition through the development of a teachers’ network that strengthens the connectionbetween environmental sciences education and the respective labor market. The paper will explain how thenetwork is formed, motivated through specific educational actions to develop the competencies necessary inorder to properly educate their students according to cutting-edge approaches in environmental education, andfinally trained to operate in an independent way. The focus is on obtaining the skills necessary to be activelyinvolvedin the green jobs market (United Nations Environment Programme, 2009). Ultimately, the work ofGreeNET is in line with the European Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Science EducationRenewal point that to render “teachers are key players… being part of a network allows them to improve thequality of their teaching and support their motivation”.

11:45-13:00

SESSION5

–

PRESENTATIONS

Rowan

Room

Reflective Practice

How and Whatto Teach about Biodiversity?

Alla Andreeva,

M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State

University BotanicGarden, Russia

To try to answer this question and understand the role the Botanic Garden can play, I would like to share someshocking conclusions of an evaluation of what our children know about biodiversity (before they start havinglessons in the Garden).

Our children do not know how many plants species there are in the world. But, after analyzing the situation,we realized that not all school educators know the answer to the question….nor do they know how manyspecies there are in our regional flora…

The next point is the importance of asking how to conserve plants. For this, it’s important to talk about the roleplayed by botanic gardens in preserving biodiversity (preserving the genofond, creating seed banks etcetera).We have to teach them that it’s impossible to save plants without preserving their natural habitats and-

mostimportantly–

without preserving the soils. Soil is a vital ecological factor for any plant. Plants grown in otherconditions lose their properties…

Anotherimportant conclusion

that I reached during the evaluation is that teachers know nothing about theproblem of invasive species. They aren’t even aware of the phenomenon and the term “invasive species”… andwhile our school and university curricula are being

updated to incorporate these concepts the situation couldget out of control.

Botanical gardens can take on a vital teaching role and become powerful educational spaces for the applicationof various techniques and approaches. In 2011-

2013 the Project participants designed and delivered a teachertraining pilot course that demonstrated the relevance of this approach and of IBSE techniques. The next step isto promote closer interaction between gardens and schools, transforming botanic gardens into a majorcomponent of contemporary school education for learning about biodiversity and plant conservation.

Investigation around the pollen

Claudine Pierre,

Collège François-Truffaut, Saint-Martin de Seignanx, France

Twice a week, 16 pupils, from 11 to 15 years

old, all volunteers, got involved in an investigating approacharound pollen and climate. By beginning with the observation of the biodiversity of the school, the pupilsasked questions on vegetables, bees and climate. The questions were all written.

A person coming from outsidethe school gave several answers concerning the changing look of the plants: the pupils have discoveredphenology. Later, we saw the questions and experiments on climate.

Our school librarian proposed the creationof an alphabet primer: it was a very creative, enriching activity

and the meeting with a beekeeper answeredquestions concerning pollen and bees.

Pollens balls are a perfect tool for an investigation and a lot of experiments. Their biodiversity made usdiscover a science:

palynology.

Fossilized pollen gives a lot of clues to different scientists and allows the re-creation of former climate!

There are a lot of positive aspects in the investigating approach: pupils ask questions, proceed by trial and errorto find the answers. They explore the point of view of a question at theirown pace. Pupils to differentstandards work and help each other, which knits the group together. The big difference in standards among thepupils could be dealt through a sharing of the activities.

The INQUIRE project really helped us to involve better

our pupils by intensifying the moments of listening, ofexchange and of assessment. We also adapted our activities and our aims to our pupils. Teachers and pupilsdiscovered new techniques, new methods of learning and now everybody’s got a better knowledge on pollen.

IBSE as an approach to reduce the gap between young people and green world: an Italianexperience.

In 2012, we implementeda new survey among students from Elementary school to University in the city of Bergamo and its nearbydistricts by means of different questionnaires filled in by 3000 students.

The survey had different, butinterconnected goals: understanding if young people in their spare time regularly attend botanical gardens andother green areas such as public gardens, countryside, mountains; investigating what they do when they playoutdoor, the amount of time they spend in front of a screen and their knowledge about plants; discovering howthe green world is present in young people's everyday life.

Survey findings reveal an increasing gap between young generations and green world. Moreover, the Italianschool systems is highlybased on frontal lessons and this frontal approach seems to foster discontinuitybetween what students learn in school and outside, with special reference to the gap between plants and theircommon use in everyday life and between botany knowledge and experience.

The research aims to show that IBSE methodology and outdoor IBSE activities in Botanical Gardens can beregarded as a new approach to overcome the frontal lesson and to reduce the gap between young people andthe natural environment.

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Students’ Perspectives on IBSE

The pedagogical value of genuine inquiry.

Dominik Katterfeldt,

Botanical Garden University Würzburg, Germany

Modern education takes place in a seemingly conflicting area between learning like a machine andunderstanding principles. This seems to apply especially in scientific disciplines. Science education needsboth, facts and the ability to apply the knowledge. Problem is that we do not function like an input-memorymachine. Much effort has been spent therefore to inspire pupils to learning. Problem-based learning basicallyaims at activating learners to look into a subject. Interestingly, those approaches disregard the commonconstructivist view. Prepared questions or problems are not necessarily the ones pupils learn most of. Theintrinsic/extrinsic motivation ratio then is unfavourable regarding lasting education. One hint for that is the factthat pupils after an instructed conceptual change often switch back to their previous understanding.

Learners need to formulate their

own questions regarding the subject. Thus they are literally involved. In thispaper we show that questions aiming directly at nothing than answers mostly are not adequate for learningprocesses of complex scientific matters. We propose a mode of education that animates genuine unanticipatedquestions. Based on experience in philosophizing with children in context of “Jaspers’ Club” we demonstratewhy outdoor learning experiences are highly suited for this enquiry within education. With this reasoningenquiry learners will be enabled to understand better and more sustainable.

The use of IBSE for improving science literacy and education at MNHNC

Raquel Barata,

Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência-

Museus

da Universidade de Lisboa,Portugal

Theneed for improving science literacy has been a central topic for the last decades in Europe and the termInquiry has a persistent history in characterizing good science education. Innovative learning methodsdeveloping skills related to inquiry, decision-making and problem solving must provide young students withreal experiences which are meaningful to them. Therefore, new proposals of curricula are inquiry-based,involving new forms of technology and proposing the use of Learning Outside the Classroom (LOtC) contexts.Botanic Gardens and Natural History and Science Museums represent ideal LOtC institutions allowingstudents to explore on their own and to interact with collection objects related to real contexts, developing theirknowledge and skills in ways that add value to their classroom everyday experiences. This paper presentsresults of two major projects developed by the National Museum of Natural History and Science of LisbonUniversity bridging non-formal

and formal education in order to promote the dissemination of Inquiry BasedScience Education (IBSE) through the use of exhibitions as outdoor opportunities to deliver high qualityinquiry activities. The INQUIRE project involved 40 teachers and 10 educators in formation courses about thepracticeof inquiry for teaching biodiversity and climate change using the Botanic Garden. The teachers’experience during the INQUIRE course resulted in recognizing IBSE and the use of LOtC as an opportunity toengage students, turning them into active problem-solvers and able to motivate their families in their schoolprograms. The Natural Europe project aimed the development of educational pathways with digital contents tohelp teachers and students to develop inquiry based activities using the Museum exhibitions. These IBSEeducational pathways were tested by teachers and their students from 10 to 14 years old and results show thatsuch educational resources may in fact promote the

knowledge and awareness about natural sciences contents.

The Garden of Stairs

Anne Birkeland,

Department of Outreach Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, Norway,Annelise Bothner-By,Departement of Design, Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Norway

The Garden of Stairs’ (Trappebakkehagen) was launched in the Botanical Garden of the Natural HistoryMuseum in Oslo, summer 2011 as part of the museums educational programme developed for the Universityof Oslo’s 200 years anniversary. The project was concerned with exploring social and spatial experience inexhibitions combined with

bodily experiences of geology.

The theme of the educational programme, Forskerspiren (The Budding scientist), is geological research,fieldwork and landscape for 10 years old students. One of the aims of the project was to see how body-centredactivities,

kinetic experiences and the activation of pre-realized knowledge can be used in geology-educationof young students. A second aim was to explore how the spatial design can mediate for relations betweenpeople/students in the exhibition space, and how these social experiences relate to, and enrich the theme of theeducation programme. The result of an explorative design process was the open installation Garden of stairs,consisting of a hill with steps of stairs in a continuous mode of transformation, co-creation and re-creation, andother elements. The project has resulted in new ways of engaging the school, engaging the visitor and new useof the Botanical Garden as museum space.

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Evaluation of IBSE

Fostering INQUIRE through Evaluation Capacity Building

Fabio Dovigo, Vincenza Rocco,University of Bergamo, Italy

Compared to the great spread of IBSE methods, evaluation of inquiry-based activities still remains ratherundeveloped. Many assessments tools for evaluating the quality of IBSE activities and student’s skills arecurrently employed but, since IBSE has proved to be a complex process, there is no “right way” to assess it(Dillon, 2012). As a consequence, despite “Science in Society” projects include program monitoring andformal evaluation to determine whether the intended findings are being achieved, there be a lack of effectiveprogram evaluation as well as a lack of confidence among professionals in their ability to use evaluation intheir programs (Coyle, 2005). To investigate this issue, we developed an analysis of the INQUIRE’s projectwithin the framework of Evaluation Capacity Building theory (ECB). ECB is the intentional work to createand sustain organizational processes that make quality evaluation and its uses routine, involving

the supply oftechnical skills, tools and resources to produce evaluations which become sustainable over time (Stockdill,Baizerman, Compton, 2002; Preskill, 2008; Fleming, Easton, 2010). To this aim, we examined the activitiesmonitoring process and theassessment instruments implemented by the INQUIRE project to evaluate theirability to provide staff with skills and sufficient resources to conduct rigorous and lasting evaluations. Theinvestigation involved the analysis of documentation (forms, questionnaires, reports, manuals, and lessonplans), research with the stakeholders (interviews, focus groups), and the participation to courses, workshops,and meetings held during the project. The data collected provide an overall picture of the evaluation activitiescarried out by the project, offering valuable insights into the positive and critical aspects of INQUIRE relatedto the development of a sound evaluation capacity.

The INQUIRE course is addressed to teacher students and active teachers who are interested in inquiry basedlearning dealing with the topics biodiversity, biodiversity loss and climate change. The course is performed atthe green houses and laboratories of the University Bremen. Visits at the Green Science Center botanikaBremen and the Climate House in Bremerhaven are an essential part of the course which

consists of threemodules: investigation biodiversity and climate change, planning a school project and conducting the schoolproject.

The evaluation of the training course is conducted using qualitative and quantitative methods with interviews(pre-post), questionnaires (pre-post), research diaries and World Cafes after each meeting. Reflection isencouraged from teacher students (N=17), teachers (N=4), botanic garden educators (N=2) and teachereducators (N=2). In addition a questionnaire survey (pre-post) is conducted.

The focus of the evaluation of the INQUIRE course Bremen lays 1) on the professional growth of allparticipants regarding their pedagogical content knowledge and 2) on the implementation of the INQUIREproject.

Student teachers as well as teachers report an increase of subject knowledge in the field of biodiversity,biodiversity loss and climate change and an increase of methodological knowledge regarding IBSE. Theeducators at the biological garden, the botanika and the Climate House are

recognized as experts in theirspecific domain. The flat hierarchy between student teachers, teachers and educators supports a multifacetedmutual learning. The development of an IBSE school project in union promotes the pedagogical contentknowledge (PCK) first of all of the participating student teachers (knowledge about the pupilsâ€™ attitudes,knowledge and interest, knowledge about planning and conducting IBSE activities, knowledge about thecurriculum, knowledge about assessment techniques like concept cartoons and concept maps).

Student teachers, teachers and educators successfully set up joint goals (especially in planning the IBSE schoolprojects), focused on IBSE learning using checklists and by planning and testing IBSE activities. Studentteachers reflected regularly on their experiences during the INQUIRE meetings by research diary writing. Theparticipants understood themselves as learners. The atmosphere during the meetings was inspiring and allowedautonomy and self-efficiency of the participants.

Further results will be presented at the INQUIRE conference.

A case study: “Can children interlink specific modules/activities with each other on the one handand with the overall/ all-encompassing scientific question on the other hand?”

Elisabeth Carli,

Grüne Schule Botanischer Garten Innsbruck, Austria

In Spring 2012 a course on the topic of “Florescence and its pollinators”, which was held based on the methodof inquiry based learning, was reviewed at the Botanic Garden of the University of Innsbruck. Children agedbetween nine and ten years carried out various activities and made observations about florescence construction,nectar and pollen. During the process it was investigated, to which extent the children were able to link thoseactivities with each other and with the all-encompassing scientific question-

“Why do insects visit blossoms?”-

respectively. In order to answer this research question interviews with children, teachers and gardeneducators were conducted. In addition to video observations and photographs, children’s’ notes on theirhypotheses and observations were analyzed. Analysis of data resulted in the finding, that children were indeedable to link activities with each other quite well, whereas they were quite unable to link the activities to the all-encompassing scientific question. The case study shows that it is important to confront the children with aproblem, maybe create a dilemma, so that finding a satisfactory answer to this all-encompassing scientificquestion remainstheir main focus. Inquiry based learning cannot be imposed on children. It has to beexperienced-

maybe even rehearsed. Above all it has become clear, that the children have to know at anygiven time “what” they are doing and most notably “why” they are doing it, so they can enrich themselves byachievement and acquisition of competencies.

Aftermath of the two editions of INQUIRE training course in IBSE methodology at COIMBRABOTANIC GARDEN

Cristina Tavares,Coimbra Botanic Garden, FCTUC,Portugal;

SusanaSilva,Research Centre (CEGOT)-Coimbra University,Portugal;

Teresa Bettencourt,

Research Centre (CIDTFF), Aveiro University,Portugal

INQUIRE-

a good starting point for any educative and research activity-

is an international net-workingEuropean Project developed in 11 countries to reinvigorate inquiry-based science education (IBSE). The studyof biodiversity and climate change in formal and informal education systems is undertaken using models fortraining teachers and educators in ‘Learning outside the Classroom’. As one of the 17 partners, the Universityof Coimbra Botanic Garden (COIBG) accomplished the COInquire training two editions course.

The Coimbra INQUIRE course participants’ needs were supported by the trainers with well-founded design onIBSE methodology and different Biology, Geography and Geology plenary sessions about climatic changesand biodiversity current case-studies presentations. Also best IBSE practice inside and outside the classroomwere performed at the COIBG by setting diversified IBSE activities previously tested and well succeedededucative activities, crossing scholar curricula. Following the worksheets guidelines designed for educatorsand students, outside work in the COIBG was undertaken with the trainees, by implementing

the three mainlesson planes (Let’s hug the trees; Explorers in the Garden; Scientist-pupils in the Botanic Garden), amongother inside and/or outside activities. These enriched the educative examples and the knowledge about thegarden resources so involving and encourage the trainees to get inspiration, confidence and skills to achieve abetter performance when using the Botanical Garden for educative activities with their students.

By the implementation and evaluation of the training course we concludedthat it enhanced competence,participation, interest and motivation of learners whose outcomes presented a good structure and theproduction of innovative and reproducible projects, using IBSE methodology, with relevant curricular topics,reflected in thetrainees’ portfolios.

So the training INQUIRE courses can be considered real education in practice, as replicable educationalresources were produced, sustainable models of education directly linked with Natural Science knowledge andunderstanding.

Continuous Professional Development (CPD) is essential for a teacher’s work. By designing and giving theirlessons, teachers heavily influence the learning outcome and success of their students. Especially byimplementing various approaches to science teaching and learning, teachers directly influence their students’ability to increase their science competencies and skills. Implementing inquiry-based science education (IBSE)and learning outside the classroom (LOtC) positively affects interest and motivation of students as well as ofteachers. Research has shown that fostering the development of „Communities of Practice” (CoP) in CPDcourses has a positive impact on teachers’ learning outcomes and on their ability to integrate newly-gainedknowledge into their everyday teaching. This study analyses the social interaction between learners inheterogeneous groups, which are formed of teachers as well as educators working in LOtC institutions.Preliminary findings show that responsibility, self-initiative and cooperation of the individual participants havebeen strengthened. These basic changes in the understanding of learning have led to an increasing exchange ofknowledge and experience between participants. The participants acknowledged the different experiences ofthe other participants as

a benefit in their CoP and realize its potential for their own professional development.In other words, they have begun to use a valuable learning resource: the heterogeneous composition of thegroup.

Teachers’ reflections on the meaning of IBSE: a question of autonomy

Fran Riga,

Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, UK

In this paper, we examine what a group of in-service, secondary school science teachers think about themeaning of IBSE. 32 teachers attending a one-day workshop were asked to work in small groups to describeexamples from their classroom practice which they deemed to be instances of inquiry-based activities or tasks.They were then asked to reflect on and develop criteria which they thought would categorize theseactivities/tasks as being inquiry-based. This was followed by a smaller group of seven teachers (drawn fromthe initial 32) who then examined the criteria developed by the larger group in more detail. Data in the form ofaudio-recorded conversations, participant data record sheets (these included a SWOT analysis of the strengths,weaknesses, opportunities and barriers to IBSE), and field notes were collected. The audio-recordedconversations were later fully transcribed and were analysed by using the process of microanalysis (Straussand Corbin, 1998). We found that teachers’ perceptions of what constitutes IBSE tended to be unclear, andvaried substantially from one another as well as from publications (such as NRC, 2000) which set outguidelines on what inquiry-based approaches entail. Where some teachers believed that inquiry meant studentsconducting research-style, project work with full autonomy, and without any notion of what they would findout, others thought recipe-style tasks, where students knew what the expected results would be, and undertakenunder the watchful eye of the teacher, were also inquiry-based. Respondents also tended to believe that inquirymeant teachers had to give up teaching content themselves and allow students to find things out for themselves–

something they were most reticent to do in the current climate of teacher accountability.

Understanding the Multi-Dimensional Role of Reflection in the Educational Process: the NaturalEurope Experience

Vassiliki Markaki,

Ellinogermaniki Agogi, Greece

In an era when effective environmental education is an increasingly challenging issue, a pan-Europeanapproach called ‘Natural Europe’ redefines the use of inquiry-based learning (IBL) through the connection offormal and non-formal learning, in a modelthat consists of three phases: Pre-visit, Visit, Post-Visit. Bydefinition, the IBL model involves reflecting on and critiquing experiments, debating with peers, formingcoherent arguments (Linn, Davis, & Bell, 2004). More specifically, Inquiry-based learning refers to a specific,cyclic and nonlinear model of five teaching steps, including reflection about knowledge and the learningprocess, which leads to new and refined questions-

and the process goes on for another cycle. While the Pre-visit phase deals with prior knowledge, research and personal experimentation, the reflection process starts asearly as in the Visit phase and is enhanced by the non-formal institution surroundings; it is then that studentsare expected to come up with results and to discuss them with their peers and reflect on different explanationsthan the ones initially given. The Post-visit is the concluding step, during which students are asked to workindividually or in groups to reflect on the whole experience and create a tangible product to summarize theirfindings. In this sense, reflection as an active, vital and continuous procedure rather than simply a step of theeducational process as it deepens learning and leads students to further reflect on their visit experiences.Overall, the focus is on the qualitative and quantitative enhancement of the participants’ educationalexperience offered in a non-formal context (National Science Education Standards, 1996). This paper willillustrate how the enhancement of the reflection process in an integrative approach in environmental sciencescan contribute to the comprehension of major scientific issues and the improvement of innovative andpersonalized educational experiences that correspond to the learners’ individual needs.

14:15-15:30

SESSION6

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POSTERS

AshRoom

Yesterday, Today and Tomorow

Anabela Magalhães,University of Coimbra Botanic Garden, Portugal

The purpose of this activity is to identify five biomes which are present at Oporto Botanical Garden andfocuses on Biodiversity lost or adaptation related with Climate Change. Oporto Botanical Garden provides arange of opportunities to develop this educational activity. It holds a great diversity of native and non nativeplants that represent 5 world biomes: Boreal Coniferous Forest, Deciduous Temperate Forest, Chaparral,Desert and Tropical Rainforest. The focus questions are: how are plants suited on their biomes? Will biomesbe able to walk? The activity consists on the application of 3 ‘H’s (Head-on, Hands-on, Heart-on) and isdivided in these following parts: 1st Part-

Where are you going? (represents Tomorrow). The student will act asan explorer, discovering the garden with

the help of coloured arrows which guide him into the 5 biomes. Ineach biome, near some trees, there will be a poster with animals, biome conditions and localization on worldmap. In this first part of the activity the student is required to create a biome map. On the second part of theactivity there will be plants' adaption clues near trees which represent those biomes. (e.g. Aloe sp. at the Desert: “I´m living in dry and hot climates so I have thick, fleshy leaves to preserve water.”) In this part the

studentwill identify plants' adaptation and relate to the biomes' conditions.

The first and second part of the activitywill occur outdoors. The third part will occur in the classroom. Each student chooses a biome where theywould prefer to live. After students collect some material in the garden they will be able to make a maquettethat represents the chosen biome. At last, students will play a card game on biomes extinction or adaptation.This activity will occur on Easter Holidays so I don´t have the results yet.

From Reflection to Research

Inessa Voynova,State-funded educational establishment of the City of Moscow Education, Russia

I first visited Moscow University’s Aptekarskiy Ogorod Botanic Garden in 2009 and was always inspired bythis amazing place in the centre of a major metropolis. Over time, I gradually came to realize that the Garden isnot only a place of leisure and visual delight, but also an open air classroom and research laboratory. And in2012 I attended the pilot INQUIRE course, which helped me to see the Botanic Garden and teaching as awhole in a completely new way.

What is INQUIRE education all about? It’s about seeing a problem where apparently there is nothing new tolearn…learning to ask questions in a way that motivates students to solve problems…constructing differenthypotheses, both scientific and absurd ones… seeking out fascinating information…and conductingexperiments. All of these things are the essence of scientific research. It’s also about compiling a portfolio…reflecting, assimilating, becoming aware…These are perhaps the most important aspects!

Although I was already familiar with most of these techniques, IBSE is now becoming an integral part of bothmy teaching and my personality.

Here are some projects we haverun since January 2013:

• A Visit to the Herbalist (about different medicinal plants)-

a master class for 5th and 6th grade studentsas part of the school’s Traveling with a Rucksack of Knowledge event;

• GM crops–

for or against: public dates for 6th-9th grade students;

• Festival of Amazing Science, Technology and Culture–

extracurricular activity for primary school pupilsrun by senior school students

Our next project is about getting children to create an atlas of plants in the Garden’s hothouse and using it totrain students as tour guides. They will lead tours entitled “Rain Forest Epiphytes”, “One Plant Museum: theCycas”; “How many Species of Liana in the Hothouse” etc.

Teresa Bettencourt,Department of Education, University of Aveiro, Portugal

The University of Coimbra Pilot INQUIRE course (COInquire) formed twenty trainees among teachers andeducators on Inquire Based Scientific Education (IBSE) methodology. Each of them developed an individualproject applying this methodology with their students outside the classroom school environment.

One of the main objectives of

the INQUIRE Project is to implement the IBSE teaching methodology and todisseminate the outcomes as educative and innovative new resources. To accomplish this goal and toreinvigorate the methodology IBSE as a more attractive learning sciences methodology, the educativeoutcomes should be available to a wide-ranging and complete educative community.

Some of the COInquire trainees have developed blogs to publicize the activities, but the Coimbra groupconsidered necessary to centralize all resources. It was therefore developed one platform with various levels ofaccess to facilitate the trainees ‘projects availability for an easier trainers assessments and also to promote thetrainees sharing and delivery of the entire projects outcomes and to allow a wider

sharing of educativeresources.

This COInquire Training Course platform is likely to persist after the finalization of the European project-

http://sequoia.bot.uc.pt/jardim/inquire

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as a dissemination agent on IBSE methodology applied in wellsucceeded educative resources on climate changes and biodiversity.

Also, the results of the projects resulting from COInquire first edition were spread within FORUM. Plenaries,IBSE activities, workshops, educational resources were performed on sciences education and the program‘sessions, book of abstracts and other outcomes are available on COInquire Forum platform-

Continuing after the finalization of the European INQUIRE project, we consider these platforms sustainableapproaches for educative resources dissemination, so contributing to effective professional learningcommunities, also providing their development over time.

Botany at School: Learning to Observe Plants in a School Environment

Jose Pedro Marín,

Faculty of Education, University of Murcia, Spain

This practical project is focused towards students that are studying, studying the Primary Education degree atthe University of Murcia (Spain). This practice was called ´Botany at School´ and is about learning amethodological way to observe plants in a school environment (school garden, neighborhood gardens andcultivated plants inside the classroom, etc.)

The scenarios chosen for these experiences with students took place in a forest area close to the Faculty ofEducation. Many specimens from the Mediterranean can be found there, growing spontaneously alongsideothers that we had planted in recent years. Another scenario used was the recovery of the Botanical Garden ofMurcia which vegetation is serving as a tool to teach botany, considering plants that mayserve us for futureworkshops based on the inquire methodology.

These activities were based on experience gained during the ´Inquire course´ developed by the Royal BotanicalGarden of Madrid and the Royal Botanic Garden of the University of Alcala in November 2012. We decided totake an approach based on the deductive method with the point of view about nature study outdoors, trying tomeet the educational ideal of moving the classroom outdoors and reject the classical lab-practice based onobservation of plants collected by the teacher with closed results.

IBSE: New Educational Opportunities and Resources for Students and Teachers

Svetlana Soboleva,State-funded educational establishment of the City of Moscow, Secondary SchoolNo.1344 for in-depth study of

biology and chemistry, Russia

Participation in the INQUIRE project marks a new phase of collaboration between the school and the BotanicGarden, enabling us to use the Garden as a permanent base for developing research activities by students of allages. We have seen in practice how lessons in the Garden can motivate children to carry out research. In 2008our teachers participated in the Gardenâ€™s international SAPS project, learning how to grow fast plants anduse them in experiments with pupils in grades 3-6; these techniques still form part of our extracurricular work.

Thanks to the new IBSE techniques we have been able to expand and deepen our collaboration with theGarden. Following lessons in the Garden, students have gone on to study nature in summer camps and naturereserves, producing accomplished research projects.

The INQUIRE course has also given us new opportunities for integration between lessons in the naturalsciences (biology, nature studies, geography, chemistry) and in foreign languages. Using the multiplelanguages and enormous resource and information base of thewww.inquirebotany.org

A total of 77 teachers and educators have attended the INQUIRE courses in Spain, learning and increasingtheir knowledge about inquiry-based science education. They have been able to put it into practice taking theirstudents to the botanic gardens or developing their own lessons at school.

The INQUIRE courses in Spain have been developed by two partners working side by side, The RoyalBotanic Garden of Madrid (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas) has an important researching roleand vast historical collections while the Royal Botanic Garden Juan Carlos I (University of Alcalá) occupies alarge area with different locations and resources for didactic and researching purposes. These institutions arevery different fromeach other but these differences precisely make work-sharing so rewarding.

Both institutions are located in the same region, therefore, collaboration is more effective than competition inorder to run successful IBSE training courses. Besides, the decision

of working together was not intended tosave time and labour but to enrich the project with ideas and resources as we do with the rest of the Partners.

Opinions and points of view may be different; there is where consensus democracy comes in. Likewise, it

isreally important to be open minded and understanding to reach agreement. Regardless, the advantages ofcooperation are more numerous than the disadvantages: offering different learning environments to theparticipants is more enriching; snowballing isincreased as the dissemination reaches more people and two ormore institutions are more powerful in the attempt to deal with the Education Authorities.

Locate the invader

Alfredo Cosculluela,

Juan de Valdes, Spain

This paper describes a project ,that using a simple experience, aims to check for invasive species in oursurroundings and their effects on biodiversity and the environment in general.

It is specially designed to Students of around 14 years old. It is included inside the curricula of Biology and

Geology.

Student will identify native and invasive species in their neighborhood and will elaborate a database and amap.

The main goal is that students learn to appreciate the interest of preserving the native species. The benefits theyprovide to us and

the problems caused by invaders species.

What did the dinosaurs eat?

Gro Hilde Jacobsen, Natural

History Museum Oslo, Norway

The Inquire project mainly focuses on botany and IBSE. Botany is a part of the natural sciences, but naturalscience is not just

botany: Plants don’t live alone! Nature are deeper understood in a context of several of thedisciplines of natural science. At the Natural History Museum in Oslo there are qualified mediators in botany,mycology, geology, paleontology and zoology. Priorto the INQUIRE project each department at the NaturalHistory Museum developed their own lesson plans, even in topics like evolution which all departments teach.

in themes likeevolution and biodiversity. A Botanical Garden has a great potential by hosting rocks of different origin, birdsand insects in combination with the flower collections as well as fungi growing on different substrate.However, at the Natural

History Museum in Oslo this potential has not yet been exploited in a large extent.Early in the INQUIRE project collaboration was established between the educators, inspired by the IBSE wayof thinking. This has been a fruitful experience, that will lead

to more cross disciplinary work in the post-INQUIRE period, developing new IBSE lesson plans.

The current outcome of this collaboration is a lesson plan for primary school, named “What did the dinosaurseat? “. The poster will give a short introduction to

Barbara Scapellato,School of Science and Technology, Geology Division, University of Camerino, Italy

In the last few years several studies on science education in Europe suggest the use of Inquiry-Based ScienceEducation approach (IBSE) to reverse the decline in interest of young people in science. The dissemination ofthis approach in Italian school is limited by a number of factors, among which the large amount of timenecessary to plan and then implement the activities in class, compared to the time available in relation to thecurriculum and the forms of student assessment, to the increasingly large class sizes and the lack oflaboratories and equipment. This study examines the effects of in-service teacher training about IBSEeducation on teachers’ confidence regarding IBSE teaching and on teachers’ perceptions of the impact of IBSElearning on the students. It also evaluates the short-term effects of IBSE

education on teachers' teaching qualityand motivation and the challenge that teachers have to face to introduce IBSE approach in science teaching inItalian secondary schools.The pilot training course started in September 2012, before the beginning of thelessons, and will be over in May 2013. 8 teachers (M=2, F=6) have accepted to participate in this study on avoluntary basis. This study (pre/post-test design) will gather data before, during and after a 30-hours trainingcourse by means written reflections of teachers, and of a summative evaluation administered by means ofquestionnaires and interviews. The preliminary data obtained so far show that: during the training teachers’confidence in teaching science through IBSE has began to increase; teachers

have become more aware of theirdifficulty in changing their teaching from passive to active learning; teachers think that the implementation ofIBSE activities in class have positive effects on students' learning and motivation; teachers think that the use ofIBSE approach have improved their teaching quality and motivation.

250 species of native Spanish treesand bushes, along with a great number of botanical and animal specimens.

It is located on a mountainside, 60 kilometres NW away from Madrid (Spain).

Outside that fenced area, the landscape is submitted tothe pressure of cattle, collectors of branches, pinecones,fungi, flowers and wild fruits…and the excursionists limit its natural diversity. However, within theArboretum, there is a strict regulation of visitors, walking outside designated roads is forbidden, cows andhorses are not allowed to enter, and there are no harvesting activities.

IBSE is being applied through an activity carried on several times with high school students from a nearbyschool, as part of the “Programme with Local Population” or PLP, consisting in 3 phases(WATCH/JUDGE/ACT). Students carry these actions on a specific area called Arroyo del Arca del Helechal(the Ferns’ Ark Stream), which hosts an important gallery forest.

On the WATCH phase, students investigateand discover the differences between the area’s internal and outer features: diversity of species, number ofspecies and state of preservation.

On the JUDGE phase, they search for the causes of these differences.

And on the ACT phase, they deduce and discuss behaviours to reduce the deterioration of the environment.

PLP started in 2001. The resulting data–both scientific and

methodological-

obtained along more than 10 years, are clearly revealing the existing biodiversity differencesbetween both ecosystems, as well as returning significant results.

The programme has improved gradually due to the inclusion of new techniques such as theinvestigation/inquiry, the exchange of ideas and discussion, as detected on the subsequent evaluation.

Study of the impact of climatic factors and habitat

Milena Yakimova,University of Sofia, Bulgaria

Large part of the fundamental processes in life is invisible to the naked eye. This makes them both difficult toobserve, as well as to understand and give meaning to. An example is the conducting of water and mineralsthrough the stem of the plants. Therefore, we developed a training module that makes it possible for thechildren to get acquainted with this process by creating a functional model of water moving through plants.

Outcomes:

This activity combines the planning and developing of a model that represents the way the conductive tissuefunctions. Visualizing the process helps students in realizing the significance of water for the plants on onehand, and to understand the function of the

conductive tissue within the nutrition cycle, on the other.

In the botanic garden the children may oserve a diversity of plant species adjusted to survive in differenthabitats.

The follow up activities are intended to have the children make their research more comprehensive bydeveloping experiments that provide different conditions in the environment (temperature, humidity, nutrientsin the soil and, respectively, the interactions between them).

The children summarize their conclusions referring to the impact of the changes in the living conditions on theplants.

The poster will present challenges related to the development and implementation of this activity in the botanicgarden. It will reflect the actually used techniques for their overcoming, as well as a critical assessment to thisactivity.

Analysis: Via this activity the children learn not only about one physiological process, but also they appreciatehow strongly the change in the environment impacts the living organisms. They build their hypotheses aboutlife and about the adjustment of different plant species in case of changes in environment conditions, includingclimate changes resulting from human interference in the ecosystems.

Inquiry by levels in the classroom

Jose Luis Olmo RÃ Squez,Ies

Guadiana,Ciudad Real, Spain

Scientific inquiry refers to the activities carried out by students to develop knowledge and understanding ofscientific ideas, as well as an understanding of how scientists study the natural world. To get this end weperform

a set of activities based on the methods of inquiry that we join in three levels of complexity: a) Level1. Activities based on questions. Questions are the key to good teaching and the student must have someinterest in the question. An example would bewatching a documentary or video in the classroom and studentsshould develop a set of questions with What, Where, Who, When, Why and How. b) Level 2. Activities basedon experiments. Laboratory practices or simple experiments are made in the classroom or at home, studentswill acquire scientific procedures and clarify their ideas about the nature of science. There are hundreds ofexamples. One of them (designed by us) is the identification of photosynthetic pigments in order to answer thequestion

‘Do all the leaves of the plants have to be green?’

(C) Level 3. Project-based activities. Researchingwill be performed at the maximum level because with these students will be able to use inquiry to learn to doscience and learn about science and its contents. At

this level, we include the "mini-projects" and researchprojects in which we use the scientific method to its fullest extent. Finally, when we work the different levelsof inquiry, the results obtained are very positive, both for students and for teachers.

Exploring nature through children-led inquiry

Kamelia Miteva,

Bio Games, Sofia, Bulgaria

The effects of children-led inquiry are learning effectively and the most interesting for each individual. This istrue for semi-outdoor playful experiential activities in botanic gardens, etc. A facilitator provoked children,who then led her, inquiring about facts of interest to them.

A result of the INQUIRE teacher training

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The medicinal plant module

Roland Wozniewski, Annette Reisenweber,

Christina Siefert,Botanika, Bremen, Germany

One intention of the INQUIRE teacher training in Bremen (Nov 2011–

May 2012) was to get teachers tocreate a new IBSE (inquiry based science education) module, in order to build a community of practice.Although all of us are very experienced in our fields we had to figure out what IBSE exactly means in practice.Teaching pupils with IBSE is worthwhile however it can be difficult to transfer all the information we want to.It is still a process we and the pupils are in.

The module was created until May and got tested by several school classes between May and September 2012.New aspects were included in the former lesson after finishing an INQUIRE course for garden educators. Fromthe idea to the actual version it took more than half a year. The result of this process ensures that pupils andeducationalists are motivated.

During the module, pupils take the role of medieval monks. Different villages ask for help to find out whichplant helps to get rid of their disease. Thedifferent illnesses get them to form groups. First they have to figureout with an ‘old book’ which diseases can potentially get cured by which plants. Afterwards they find outfurther information in the medicinal plant section of the botanical garden. All

necessary information have to becollected in order to write an informative answer to the villagers. After a verbal presentation the pupils changetheir role. They become villagers and have to find out which plant is described in the letter written by anothergroup. Provided with all information except the name of the most suitable plant the villagers have to find theplant in the medicinal garden to get cured.